Product Description
This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: A Heritage and Its History, the Present and the Past, Pastors and Masters, Manservant and Maidservant, a House and Its Head, the Last and the First. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: A Heritage and Its History is a novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett first published in 1959 by Victor Gollancz. 69-year-old Sir Edwin Challoner lives with his extended family in a grand old house in rural Southern England. Unmarried, he has no direct issue, and the person closest to him is his younger brother Hamish, who is also his business associate. Hamish has a wife, Julia, and two sons, Simon, aged 25, and Walter, three years younger, who has dropped out of Oxford to be a poet. When Hamish Challoner dies of a heart condition, Simon prepares to become head of the house, as everyone assumes that it will only be a matter of a few years, if not months, before Sir Edwin also dies. However, the lonely old patriarch surprises them by announcing his impending marriage to their neighbour Rhoda Graham, who is more than 40 years his junior. After the newlyweds have returned from their honeymoon, Simon and Rhoda share a moment of unbridled passion in the old house ("Youth and instinct did their work"), and Rhoda becomes pregnant. As Sir Edwin and his wife have not had any sex during their brief marriage, there is no doubt as to who has sired the child. However, Sir Edwin decides to be its legal father, and swears Simon, Rhoda, and Walter to secrecy about the paternity of Rhoda's baby. When a healthy boy is born, he names him Hamish in honour of his deceased brother. The implications of this arrangement, ostensibly contrived to keep up appearances, are far-reaching. Suddenly Simon finds himself no longer in a position to inherit his uncle's fortune, w...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=15018458 ... Read more